JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Native American Indians invented the Blues

Colm T.

Told you that you were opening up a can of worms here.

MAB

Most of the folks here agree with your assessment on this one.

Kevin

^^^^^well thank you Kevin. Glad there are some reasonable folks on this board who aren't trying to change history to fit there agenda.

@Marc i guess you would be correct. But don't compare us to muslim extremists, that's ignorant at best.

Sage,

First of all I didn't compare anyone to anything. I said these types of things get going no matter what you do when you try to dive into these kinds of waters. People's reactions are like this when you start going for sacred cows. And incidentally I agreed with you from the beginning. Just come at it from a different perspective. Don't go looking for offense when none is intended.

MAB

Sage,

This is what I said:

To attempt to pass forward the concept that African Americans were not the originator of the blues in today's political climate, is probably going to be met with the same general attitude of how Mulsums percieve incorrect portrayals of Mohammad or Allah. I would proceed with great caution.

MAB


I am talking about the intensity of feelings. It has nothing to do with any philosophy or or particular views on any particular subjects. It is how people feel about their roots, their music, their culture or anything they truly believe in. Nothing to compare anyone to anything.

MAB

Well you certainly cleaned it up nicely the second go round, i actually agree with you but if you don't see anything offensive in your first statement,then hey, so be it. Have a nice day.

Sage,

I guess I will just have to say, if you see something offensive in my first and only statement,then hey,so be it.You have a nice day.

MAB

Hi Sage:

I won't call you Ms. if you won't call me Mr. (LOL!) Before I forget my manners, "Welcome to JPF." I'm sorry you may have taken offense at some of the comments here. No racism or snide remarks are intended. If one believes the latest theories of the origins of the human race... everybody originally came from Africa... and that would make us sorta like cousins, wouldn't it?

Colm is working on a thesis about the origins of the blues and part of his theory is that Native Americans may have created this genre. (Most of us sincerely doubt this possibility but an open mind certainly helps all of us... even though we may disagree with the idea.)

On a side note, I can promise you the Marc certainly is not an offensive kind of guy. He's one of the few professionals that will take the time to visit with us "bottom feeders" here in the music world... and share his wisdom. I hope you will accept his appology and just go with the flow here. I understand your pride and I can certainly agree that many folks post just to be smart-aleks... but none have done so intentionally on this thread.

Thanks for hearing me out... and welcome.

Dave

Thank you Dave. I do try to keep this professional and on music. Sometimes we use the most recent terminoligy we see around us. Perhaps I could use sharks attacking each other in a feeding frenzy.

On topic I have thought a bit about Colm's theory and I can offer what I think of as two reasons it is doubtful it happened as he is thinking.

Number one, for anything to have an impact on a certain form of culture like music, it generally would have needed to be heard.

Since most Native American tribal songs are more chants and incanations and used for tribal ceremonies, most of those would have never been heard by anyone outside the tribes. it is not like Mississippi blues players were going on over to the reservation to pick up the latest music. Particularly in the time frame we are talking about, early 1900's.

Second, most of it would have needed to be recorded. Lomax and people like that who recorded songs like Ledbelly from prisons and the early blues, didn't record that much native American music for the same reason. It was not allowed by the tribes.

While I do admit that all forms of music have a lot of fathers and influences, I simply can't see how what he has furthered could actually have happened the way he seems to indicate.

I believe it is mostly as the historians have noted, rhythms and music were brought to America by slaves from the African plains, the West Indies and other areas. A large population of those ended up in the South, and when slavery was ended, filtered into areas by the practicioners of those types of music, the early black bluesmen.

Country happened mostly when people from the hills of Appilacia coupled with those rhythms and melodies. Most were handed down for generations before. Many were from the Celtic countries of Ireland and Scotland.

No one is ever going to be able to say for sure where anything came from, records on things like that were not kept in those days. but we have to apply a little common sense and it seems like that would be the most obvious route. I have been wrong before, but in this I have just not ever seen any evidence to the contrary.

MAB